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English language skills for students of administrative 
sciences. Manica Danko, Vida Zorko in collaboration 
with Rachel Lindner. Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta 
za upravo, Ljubljana (2019). 88 pp. ISBN: 978-961-262-
114-8
In English language teaching at the tertiary level, the ever-increasing need for raising 
students’ awareness of the discourse conventions used in individual academic disciplines 
and professional domains has fuelled the demand for teaching materials adapted to the 
specific field of study while also equipping students with more cross-curricular skills of 
academic engagement. ESP teaching materials must also be designed to accommodate the 
fact that each academic or professional community operates with a set of specialised genres 
and conventions and demands very specialised skills. 
English Language Skills for Students of Administrative Sciences, authored by Manica Danko 
and Vida Zorko, lecturers in English at the Faculty of Public Administration, University of 
Ljubljana, in collaboration with Rachel Lindner, Lecturer of English for International Business 
Studies at the University of Paderborn, is a coursebook which aims to meet these very needs. 
Targeted at first-year students of the study programmes of Public Sector Governance and 
Administration, the publication presents a skills-based coursebook the aim of which is to 
familiarise students with specific text genres and communicative situations they will encounter 
in their professional careers, while also equipping them with the necessary language skills 
they will need over the course of their studies (at the home university and in intercultural 
settings).
The book consists of 13 sections, each structured around a specific set of skills. It follows 
the principle of a gradual acquisition of competencies and their application in increasingly 
complex communicative and independent activities. This progression incorporates a range 
of classroom activities ranging from more individual work (e.g., comprehension checks, 
writing tasks, translation and dictionary work) to highly interactive activities (discussions 
and role-plays). Each unit begins by informing students of its objectives and closes with an 
invitation to complete additional self-study activities posted in the e-classroom. Apart from 
developing students’ general academic listening, reading, speaking and writing skills, the 
book also includes terminology translation activities with specific attention to phraseology, 
collocations, synonymous expressions, derivation, and successfully combines these with the 
skills of consulting online resources (websites, dictionaries and termbases). 
In a sense, the first three units of the textbook lay the groundwork for all subsequent activities 
covered by the book. Through various skills-based tasks, Unit 1 encourages students to think 
about their language needs and the strategies they can use in learning English. Unit 2 addresses 
the use of online dictionaries, parallel corpora and termbases, stressing the importance of 
language learning through collocations and phrases rather than individual words. Unit 3 
represents a logical continuation of the first two units by inviting students to apply the skills 
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of terminology management and dictionary use in forming definitions, bringing the related 
phraseology closer to the user by positioning it in real-life communicative situations.
The next four sections make a gradual transition from refining students’ reading skills 
to developing their writing skills. Thus, Unit 4, which is devoted to the reading strategies 
of skimming (identifying the main ideas in a given text) and scanning (discerning specific 
information), already hints at the upcoming focus on writing skills by suggesting useful 
phrases which can be used in formulating gist sentences and summaries. Unit 5 aims to 
enhance students’ writing skills by drawing their attention to paragraph structure in terms of 
topic sentences, supporting and closing sentences and the use of suitable linking words and 
phrases. In Unit 6, students’ knowledge of paragraph structure and linking phrases is applied 
and further developed in the practice of writing summaries (in Slovene as well as in English).
Recognising the prominent role public speaking plays in students’ academic and future 
professional careers, the authors devote considerable attention to presentation skills. In Unit 
7 students are thus familiarised with the main structure of a presentation and are given 
guidelines on the use of signposting phrases, body language, visual aids, and are given useful 
tips on how to best prepare for the task. This section gives students ample opportunity to 
immediately put the suggested strategies into practice and closes with students’ critical 
evaluation of a given presentation.
Levels of formality in written discourse are addressed in Units 8-11, whereby Unit 8 covers the 
main features of formality in English and introduces students to the language and terminology 
used in administrative discourse. A reflection on the language used in civil servants’ code of 
ethics as applied in the UK and Slovenia prepares students for the perhaps more daunting 
analysis of legal discourse in Unit 9. This next unit familiarises students with the key features 
of public law documents (the constitution), first from the aspect of structure and then also 
in terms of selected key phrases and use of the passive voice. Formality in writing is further 
explored in Unit 10, where students are asked to focus on the structure, rhetorical moves and 
common phrases used in research articles and abstracts. Unit 11 explores the conventions 
of formal e-mail correspondence. Applying their insights into the varying levels of formality 
in writing gained in preceding units and a selection of commonly used phrases, students are 
invited to take an active part in revising and composing formal emails.
The final task of Unit 10, namely to reply to a job advertisement seeking additional information, 
provides a lead-in of sorts to the final topics of the book contained in Units 12 and 13 – job 
descriptions and job interviews. In Unit 12, a text describing the duties of a government 
officer gives students the opportunity to learn the essential terminology and collocations 
related to employment in public service, which is then applied in Unit 13 focusing on job 
interviews. Having acquired the phrases of answering as well as tactful phrasing of questions, 
students are given the opportunity to role-play a job interview.  
As evident from the above outline, the coursebook follows the skills-based design of discipline-
specific ESP textbooks intended for international students studying in anglophone academic 
environments. In light of the increasing internationalisation of European universities (e.g., 
student mobility programmes), such an approach undoubtedly represents one of its many 
strengths. Moreover, by raising students’ awareness on intercultural differences of individual 
genres and by developing their translation skills between the two languages, it also successfully 
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incorporates very specific skills pertaining to future professionals in public administration in 
Slovenia. 
There are many aspects of this coursebook which make it an excellent resource for teachers 
and students alike. Its material is well structured and systematically organised in the sense 
that it offers a logical and gradual progression from simpler to more complex tasks. The 
development of each skill itself contains application and consolidation of other skills in the 
process, an approach which unquestionably keeps learners on their toes and makes learning 
fun and seemingly effortless. Each unit is neatly laid out with icons signalling the type of 
activity, blue-colour textboxes used for language and other guidelines, and ample space 
designated for student responses. Another helpful aspect of this coursebook is that it invites 
its users to use online sources and additional activities in the Moodle e-learning environment. 
This makes this teaching resource flexible and adaptable for use in classes of different levels 
of language competence and also other related fields of study.
As for the limitations of this book, it would have been beneficial to include a separate section 
on skills pertaining to discussions and debates, and one on paraphrasing and citing sources, 
as these are amongst the key skills necessary for successful academic engagement in any 
field of study. What would also be useful to include in subsequent editions are transcripts 
of the audio/video material, a glossary of useful words and phrases, a list of links to relevant 
websites and an updated selection of available bilingual termbases (e.g., Termania). It would 
be particularly beneficial to incorporate guidelines for working with online monolingual and 
bilingual language corpora (e.g. GigaFida, CoCA, MICASE, Linguee).
Overall, this ESP coursebook presents a valuable resource to novice as well as more experienced 
teachers. While it is straightforward enough for pre-intermediate and intermediate English 
students, its flexibility in terms of the use of additional online sources and language tools 
makes it a valuable resource also for those at more advanced levels of proficiency in English.
Martina Paradiž
University of Primorska, Slovenia
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